Fall 2017 seminar: Ph.D. candidate, history of architecture and urban development
Labib Hossain is a first-year Ph.D. student in the History of Architecture and Urban Development program. Prior to Cornell, Hossain graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with an M.S. in architecture under the supervision of Dilip da Cunha and Anuradha Mathur. He received his B.Arch. and M.Arch. from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in Bangladesh. His studies focus on the traditional practices (muslin weaving) in monsoon landscape that can offer an alternative reading of human habitation, one that challenges the dry/permanent ground and serves to open a new imagination that shifts us from a divided landscape of contained waters to a "ground of wetness." The idea of dwelling derived from weaving questions the rigid dichotomy, as it is detached and rooted at the same time. The Migration and Discrimination seminar will provide a rich medium for his research project, and give him an understanding of the complex phenomenon of displacement which will be essential for his Ph.D. research.